Handbook of Colour

The Methuen Handbook and Colour Dictionary is an authoritative but popular and easy-to-use guidebook to working with colour, especially in Graphics. The handbook explains the basic facts upon which all systems of colour identification are based and describes some important visual effects that apply to colour usage generally. Whereas most printers’ charts and colour dictionaries today use only 4 inks in trichromatic printing, the Methuen Colour Dictionary uses more than 30 inks, giving 1266 gradations, in a system of 30 plates showing 6 tones and 8 densities of each hue, cross-referenced with lists of colour names. The Methuen Dictionary is international, also giving British Standard equivalents, including the names of colours used by British paint manufacturers and colours traditionally associated with British inks. Also included are CIE equivalents. The Methuen Dictionary is specially interesting to psychologists. The High Stimulus colours (1) radiate from beyond the top of each A corner; the Power colours (2) from above the B and C columns; the more austere chromatic shades (3) that moderate many environmental effects in nature, tend towards D and E; whilst, the muted nuances (4) the desaturated and virtually subliminal colour-effects cluster around columns 2 to 5 towards column F.